You
by Steel Stilettos
Summary: A short, descriptive piece with SS/HP implied. This is my first fic in this particular category and feedback would be very much appreciated.


Title: You   
  
Author: JObsessor CyanideCerise@aol.com  
  
Rating: PG   
  
Pairing: Severus/Harry  
  
Disclaimer: Owned by JK Rowling, Warner Bros, and not me.  
  
A/N: This is my first fic in the HP realm and its fairly ambiguous on purpose. I dont think any names are mentioned. Feedback is nice...I'd like to improve.  
  
  
  
You were so out of character that night and if I'd been smarter I would have noticed. It wasn't you, not really, something was weighing on your mind, but I liked you that way and so I pretended everything was fine. I didn't want the dream to crumble.  
  
I saw the mischief glinting in your dark eyes just a moment before your hand snared mine, tugging me closer to your swirling robes. We kissed under the lonely tree on the edge of the orchard, and then you ran ahead, still clutching my wrist.  
  
My fingers found yours; lacing together and holding tight and I screamed words.  
  
"Where are we going?" I asked you as we ran past the boundaries of the orchard and into the forest. Maybe you smiled, but it was dark, and you ran faster with near impish delight. Tripping on dead things, our feet moved in a blur of inky shadow and I stumbled far more than you did because you ran so much faster. We were transcendent spirits; did you feel it too? With our furious race, we no longer felt solid, we drifted higher, above the mundane, and together we flew, scratching our faces on the whipping branches.  
  
You slowed down, or maybe I sped up, but then you stopped and I tripped over your boots. You laughed, deep yet so quiet, and took my hand, lifting me from the dirt in which I fell.  
  
A long moment passed while we leaned on mossy trees, catching our breath and only then did I question your impulse. "Why are we here?"  
  
"To watch the shadow devour the moon. To turn to dust." Your chocolate eyes shone with the crystal starlight above and I followed your gaze. Overhead, I saw the trees part and the sky was open with the moon just to the right. It was full and bright and I said no words, only glanced to you, my eyes meeting a pair that had already been watching me.  
  
"Come sit here." You said, unfastening your black cloak and spreading it like a blanket. I saw your almost ingratiating smile, but that was unnecessary. There was no need to charm for my acceptance because I had given it long ago. By now it was a tacit truism.  
  
I stepped through the sparkling dew covered grass and trod on wild mushrooms, stretching my hands to meet yours. Through you, I found salvation, a quiet hurricane inside, drowning my mind when I got too near, and when we touched, your storm electrified. Sometimes I wondered if you felt it too.  
  
Sometimes I wondered if you felt anything besides the darkness, an anathema, but completely a part of you...inseparable from the rest.  
  
So we sat in close proximity to one another while our eyes flickered from the clear stars to the murky forest and back again. You were a master at dispelling my fears even though others found you terrifying. A true virtuoso though you always waved it away with tossed wrist and a shrug.  
  
"It's started." You whispered, tilting my chin from a firefly nearby to the moon above. It had stagnated in the center of the open patch of midnight over our heads and a slow shadow slowly ate at its right side. The once salient, full silver orb was extinguished and you gripped my hand like a vice, trembling; though I didn't know why. I thought I heard your voice underneath the static in my head, but knew I was mistaken. So rarely you spoke, and so dark was your voice, like eclipsed shadows shrouded in black oil silk with thirteen demons as its guard. Then I heard your voice again, almost screaming through my mind, though it was little more than a whisper in reality.  
  
My heart pounded too noisily and I bet you could hear it. I bet you could see it too, right through my cloak and past the skin, because you saw everything. You fell silent again, drinking in the tumultuous night as though you hadn't uttered those three words. I knew better, of course, I knew you better than anyone ever had or wanted to, and so I felt the imperceptible tenseness in the arms that held me.  
  
Maybe I should have said those words back, but your candid moment of honest, sincere emotion swallowed my words and I said nothing.  
  
I knew you were upset, adding another disappointment to that mental list and more blackness to your already dismal self. I'd say I'm sorry, but it's two years, three months and eight days too late. I even counted the hours since that moment.  
  
It was when the moon was fully submerged in Earth's shadow that you pushed me from your arms and I fell into the dampened dirt.  
  
"Leave me." You ordered, and there was no room for question, though I asked anyway. Your voice was sinister, like always, but this time I heard suppressed panic.  
  
"Why? What is it?" I expected no spoken answer, and you fixed your burnt sienna eyes on my own, evergreen and always too bright. You gave me a trenchant glare; sharp and cutting...the same eyes you flashed to victims of your legendary wit and whirlwind wrath. I thought I was more to you than that, I thought you said you'd loved me, but I must have misread and misheard everything.  
  
I crawled on my knees, pitifully, to plead in front of you, but you exploited my fragile position, taking advantage of me below you. When I clutched your robes in silent desperation, you twisted away, a heavy boot hitting my stomach and I watched you back away into the forest. The darkness consumed your shadowy figure and I was alone.  
  
The shadow began to give up the moon and silvery light shone down, reilluminating the damp grass, purple flowers, and wild mushrooms. I think I cried for you then, I cried for your treachery and slyly perfidious ways. You left and I never knew why. I still don't, but after they found your cold body three days later, I could guess.  
  
Those damned dogs had finally taken you. You and I both knew they'd come eventually, and you must have known that they were nearby that night. It was why we ran so fast and stopped to watch the sky. You could track them by the moon, I don't know how you did it, but you'd planned your escape during the eclipse to lure them from me.  
  
I thought of that at your modest funeral and while the misinformed public rejoiced, I grieved and lamented your departure. I remembered your predilection to the macabre, that preference towards the gloom that most people shunned in favor of the burning light and heartless purity.  
  
I had no qualms about you, though. Even in the end when you fixed your predator glare on me, I know now that it was only your fear of them, the monsters...you never wanted me to fall with you and it had always been said that I was too good to stay near your corruption.  
  
I never said that I loved you too, but I did. I loved your sarcastic cynicism, that upside down humor that nobody else seemed to follow, the incendiary remarks that I know you only made as a dare. Always, you were pushing buttons and challenging whoever would rise to it.  
  
It's empty here now and the Ministry is threatening to take the house. I tried to live alone, but the same abyss that resided in you is slowly pushing me over the edge. I think I've had enough now. I don't have nearly enough money to afford this place anymore and I never wanted to do it alone anyway. A silent requiem is stuck on repeat in my head, but nobody else will join in. They aren't worth the hate they feed your memory. Perhaps I'm being myopic when I say that there is no afterlife for me to meet you in after I die, but I suppose after this cold knife cuts my flesh, and I bleed, dirty, on the tiles, I'll just be grateful for the darkness. It reminds me of you.  
  
-Fin- 


End file.
